Picket lines are appearing at Starbucks outlets around the world, as word spreads of the coffee giant’s firing of three IWW members for union activity between July 11 and August 5. Workers were illegally fired on pretexts ranging from insubordination to undermining employee morale as Starbucks grows ever more desperate to crush the union’s growing support.

The German FAU union wrote Starbucks August 19 to protest the firings of Charles Fostrom, Evan Winterscheidt, Daniel Gross and Joe Agnis (a union supporter fired earlier), and warning of actions at Starbucks outlets across Germany if they were not reinstated. In Vienna, the Allegmeines Syndikat Wien has leafleted all Starbucks outlets in that city, alerting customers to the company’s vicious union-busting.

New Zealand’s Unite union, which won a landmark fast food agreement with Restaurant Brands Ltd. earlier this year, issued a statement expressing “disgust at Starbucks’ clear discrimination against the union.” The Korean Teachers Union (Incheon Working Group) of the KCTU also condemned the firings, expressing unequivocal support for the “IWW Starbucks Workers Union’s [right] to represent and defend the rights of all Starbucks employees.”

IWW members have demonstrated outside Starbucks outlets in Bradford, Leicester and Manchester, England, and Edinburgh, Scotland. IWW members and supporters picketed the East McMillan Starbucks in Cincinnati August 19, distributing hundreds of leaflets to alert customers to Starbucks’ union-busting. In Washington, D.C., Wobblies picketed the Dupont Circle Starbucks August 28, speaking to customers and workers. They picketed the Adams Morgan store Sept. 11, launching roving pickets at Starbucks locations throughout the city. Boston Wobblies held a successful Solidarity Night fund-raiser Sept. 9, raising nearly $400 to assist the fired workers and spread the word about Starbucks’ assault on its workers. Musicians including Dieselhorse, Evan Greer, Jake and the Infernal Machine, Clara Hendricks, Bill Bumpus and Ryan Harvey performed, and speakers spoke about the Starbucks campaign between sets.

Growing numbers of union locals have added their voices to the demand that Starbucks reinstate the fired workers, including SEIU Local 707, representing 6,500 public sector workers of Sonoma and Mendocino Counties in California; Amalgamated Lithographers of America Local One, a Teamsters affiliate in New York City; and United Auto Workers Local 2334, which represents sanitation chemists in Detroit. Other organizations calling on members to boycott Starbucks until all fired union activists are reinstated include the National Lawyers Guild and the revived Students for a Democratic Society.

“The Guild is proud to stand in solidarity with the IWW baristas at Starbucks in their fight for a living wage and an independent voice on the job,” said Heidi Boghosian, executive director of the National Lawyers Guild in a widely distributed press release. “Starbucks should ashamed to be cashing in on a socially responsible image when the company is in reality a serial violator of labor rights.”

In Edinburgh, Wobblies leafleted the High Street Starbucks August 19, beginning the action by entering the store to speak with employees. A barista came up and asked for leaflets to share with co-workers even as the manager was telling the IWWs that no one was interested. Police arrived soon afterward, threatened one Wobbly with arrest, and then stood down. Hundreds of leaflets were distributed, and dozens of would-be coffee drinkers (including a marching band in town for the annual festival) turned away. A Barista from another Starbucks came up and asked for leaflets to distribute at his store.

On campuses across the United States, students are launching the Justice From Bean to Cup! (www.starbucksunion.org/bean2cup) campaign calling for the reinstatement of the fired baristas and fair compensation for coffee farmers.

Starbucks’ workers fight for their rights continues in the streets, before the National Labor Relations Board, and in growing numbers of Starbucks outlets